In conjunction with our annual horror convention, StokerCon, the Horror Writers Association is proud to host the 10th Annual FINAL FRAME Horror Short Film Competition.

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Each year, between ten to fifteen short-short films (13 minutes and under) are showcased as part of the StokerCon Horror Writers Convention. Our panel of industry judges will deliberate the night of the event to award cash prizes to our Grand Prize, 1st Runner-Up, and Best Writing in a Short Film winners.​

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2025 JUDGES

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The Tenth Annual FINAL FRAME Horror Short Film Competition is proud to present our 2025 judges.

The judges for the Final Frame competition are always an essential part of an ever-evolving film family we love to see at StokerCon. Four returning judges and two new additions round out the discerning minds tasked to evaluate the evening’s selections. We’ll have fun hearing them scream along with the audience during an evening of cinematic mindbenders leading up to their prize determinations for Grand Prize, Runner-Up, Best Writing in a Short Film, and more!

(in alphabetical order)

AARON DRIES is the author of Dirty Heads, A Place for Sinners

(featured in 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered),

House of Sighs, and Where the Dead Go to Die, some of the

“frightening and all too real” (Paul Tremblay on Cut to Care) works

he’s done to date. His professional experience in frontline mental

health and crisis intervention has greatly influenced his work,

resulting in fiction that “works from the inside out with great

skill—because he knows that horror hurts” (Mick Garris, Stephen

King’s The Stand). He has been nominated for the Bram Stoker

and Shirley Jackson Awards, winning the Ditmar, Australian Shadows, and the Aurealis.

CRAIG ENGLER is the co-creator of the TV series Z Nation and

executive producer of the Netflix spin-off, Black Summer. He

worked at the Syfy Channel and Chiller TV before becoming the

head of Shudder at AMC Networks in 2018. While at Shudder, he

brought back one of TV’s most iconic horror hosts with the launch

of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, which famously “broke

the Internet” when it debuted. He greenlit and oversaw the

Creepshow TV series, the revival of Slasher, and The 101 Scariest

Movie Moments of All Time, all of which also ran on AMC. He

spearheaded the acquisition and development of more than 100 horror films, including a revival of the V/H/S/ series, the viral lockdown sensation Host, and the Peabody Award-winning film La Llorona. The Shudder original films Revenge and Tigers Are Not Afraid helped establish the careers of superstar directors Coralie Fargeat (The Substance) and Issa Lopez (True Detective: Night Country). And the $15,000 movie Skinamarink became an indie sensation when Shudder released it in theaters before its streaming debut, earning more than $2 million at the box office. Engler is currently at work on several horror screenplays and a horror novel.

JAMIE FLANAGAN is a Bram Stoker Awards®–winning author,

actor, and screenwriter. Screenwriting credits include Netflix’s The

Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, The

Fall of the House of Usher, AMC Shudder’s Creepshow, Peacock's

Hysteria!, and Amazon's upcoming series adaptation of Stephen

King’s Carrie. Screen appearances include Doctor Sleep, Absentia,

The Haunting of Hill House, The Midnight Club, Hysteria!, and

others. Member: WGA East, HWA, SAG-AFTRA.

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JAMAL HODGE is a multi-award-winning filmmaker, a Bram

Stoker Award & Elgin Award-nominated poet, and a member of

the SFPA and HWA. His films have screened at over 100 film

festivals worldwide. As a director, he’s created narrative and

documentary work for Investigation Discovery, PBS, and Black

Oak TV. As a producer, he’s helped shape the animated feature

Pierre the Pigeon Hawk, starring Snoop Dogg, Jennifer Hudson,

and Whoopi Goldberg. In literature, his poetry collection The Dark

Between the Twilight and his anthology Bestiary of Blood: Modern

Fables & Dark Tales both debuted at #1 on Amazon’s Hot New

Release chart. Outside of magazines such as Space & Time, Penumbric, and The Siren’s Call, his work can be found in the anthologies: Hotel Macabre Vol. 1, Long Division: Stories of Social Decay & Societal Collapse, Chiral Mad 5, Qualia Nous V.2, You Are Not Alone In The Dark, Unioverse: Stories of The Reconvergence, The Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction 2022, The HWA Poetry Showcase Volumes 8 & 11 among others. www.Writerhodge.com

LISA MORTON is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books, and

prose writer whose work was described by the American Library

Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as “consistently

dark, unsettling, and frightening.” She is a six-time winner of the

Bram Stoker Award®, the author of four novels and 200 short

stories, and a world-class Halloween and paranormal expert. Her

recent releases include the novella Placerita (co-written with

John Palisano) and the Rondo Hatton Award-winning The Art of t

he Zombie Movie. She also hosts the popular weekly “Ghost

Report” podcast and a newsletter about the paranormal (The

Whole Haunted World). Lisa lives in Los Angeles and online at www.lisamorton.com.

L. MARIE WOOD is an International Impact, Golden Stake, and

two-time Bookfest Award-winner, as well as an Ignyte and

four-time Bram Stoker Award® nominated author. She has won

over 50 national and international screenplay and film awards.

Wood is also the Vice President of the Horror Writers Association,

founder of the Speculative Fiction Academy, an English/Creative

Writing professor, and a horror scholar. Learn more

at www.lmariewood.com.